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Prologue
The sand slidingbetween my thighs woke me; the grimy, grainy feel of each sharp, cold quartz particle as they stuck to my wet skin, my clothes, and every crevice. I groaned under a pounding drum that beat against the inside of my skull. I pressed my palm to my forehead as if that could ease thepain.
The air was chilled despite the place and the season, but the ocean at night was always like that. A few yards away, my best friend snored, curled up in her sleeping bag. Why we both thought a night on the beach would be the best graduation celebration was beyond me. It was a little early since neither of us had actually graduated or finished exams, but I had learned to take the good moments when I could get them. The sand between my toes and fingers cemented the choice we hadmade.
I pushed dried strands of brown hair out of my face and peeked around, noting that everything was less blurry without a few bottles of alcohol running through my system. The ocean was beautiful; a sight I rarely came to see even though I lived less than an hour away. The waves crashing against the sandy hills of shells and minuscule rocks reminded me of being rocked back and forth as a young child after having nightmares. Lately, my mom rarely even acknowledged me, unless something was wrong – and something was alwayswrong.
The brief feeling of peace was quickly and easily washed away. I shouldn't have taken the night off, I thought. We needed the money. Guilt crept in even as my headache faded. I sat up and looked over at the empty beer bottles scattered around. I had never been much of a drinker. I didn't even like beer, but after a few, I hadn't cared. The taste had gone away after the fourth or fifth bottle. At least, for me it had. It took Erika several more and a few loud complaints before she had raised the neck of her bottle up withoutflinching.
With no real sleeping bag, I had spread a sheet out on the ground with a somewhat scratchy blanket that Erika had loaned me to sleep on. It was covered in sand, so I grabbed the blankets and moved several feet away to shake them out before rolling them up together and striding back towards Erika’s sleepingform.
Staring at the ocean, so dark that it matched the sky and seemed to go on forever, I thought of all the ways things could have been different for me. Life could have been worse. It could have been better. I would have liked for it to have been better, but what was the use bemoaning something that never evenwas.
I scanned the old watch my brother had passed down to me. It told me that the sun would be up in another two hours or so. Water flicked over my skin as I began to gather my belongings and put them in my satchel. I nudged Erika awake and she moaned, rolling over and mumbling something about five more minutes. I ignored her and continued to nudge until she was well and trulyawake.
"You have the internal alarm clock of an old lady," she accused, stretching. I shuddered as the bones in her joints cracked with a loud audacity that always seemed to surpriseme.
"We're gonna be late for school," Isaid.
I didn't really care if we were late for school or not. With only a few weeks left until graduation, the last thing I cared about was tardiness. I did, however, need to get back to change and check on my mom. Erika grumbled, but thankfully began to pack her things before we headed back to the hotel parking lot that we had snuck into. Luckily, no parking violation waited on the windshield of her parents' rusted pick-up truck. We climbed into the cab, her behind the wheel and me in the passenger side, and settled in for the driveback.
Nearly forty-five minutes later she pulled into Pendergrass Circle, stopping in front of the yellow-paneled, brown-roofed duplex that I lived in with my mom. I waved Erika off as I shut the front door and headed straight to my room. It seemed that almost as soon as I sat down on my sagging mattress, the house phone began to ring. I jumped up and ran for the hall to grab it before the noise woke Momup.
"Hello?"
"Why do you sound out of breath?" I sighed at the sound of Michael'svoice.
"Well, it's 7 am here, so I didn't want the phone to wake Mom up. Where areyou?"
My brother, Michael, had been given a full ride to a private college in upstate New York right out of high school. Four years and a bachelor's degree in business management later, he was indoctrinated as a recruiter for a company in the Big Apple itself. A part of me envied him the detachment he felt from our mom. There had been nothing but anger and bitterness between them when he had packed what little he had here, and left. It was nice to have my own room, but I still missedhim.
"I'm in Seattle right now, but I should be heading back to New York in another few hours. I'm waiting for a flight. How is she? Anybetter?"
Michael only called every once in a while, never asking to speak to her, and I didn't blame him. She had accused him of stealing from her and thrown him out of the house several times before he turned eighteen. It was only later that we learned she had severe bipolar disorder and now, with the tumor in her brain, her moods were worse. Even with the medication doctors gave her to help counteract them, the cancer only ate up more of the kind loving mom she had been when we wereyoung.
"Nothing's changed," I said. "Everything's the same asalways."
"Okay." An extended silence hung betweenus.
"Is there anything else?" Iasked.
"You graduate in a few weeks, don'tyou?"
"Yea." Like I could forget that school would be well and truly over and I could finally enter the working world full time. "Do you...I mean, are you...coming?"
"I don't know if I'll be able to make it. I'll be sure to send a gift orsomething."
"No," I said. "You don't have to dothat."
"I gotta go, Harlow. I'm about toboard."
"Okay, besafe."
"Bye."
I set the phone back in the cradle and walked towards my room, pausing to glance in on my mom. Her face was tilted towards the only window in her bedroom, the covers drawn to her chest as she breathed slowly. She looked so different from me, light blonde and gray strands spilling over her pillow. If she turned and opened her eyes, I would see pale, blue eyes that weren't anything like my brown ones. They were pretty, but painful to look at sometimes when she screamed and cried at me. Sometimes, I wish I could trade my brown eyes for her blue ones because maybe then, when I looked in the mirror I would be reminded of a younger version of my mom instead of a replica of a dad I hadn't known for verylong.
I closed the door and crept back to my room, quickly dressing for school and heading out to catch thebus.
